- Nature of God: There is only one God and creator, who is unknowable. God has revealed himself in history through humans as messengers or prophets. These men are not God but are considered manifestations of God in the sense that they reveal what wasn’t known before them In succession these men have included Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, The Bab, and Bahu’ullah.
- Nature of Man: Man is a made of a rational immortal soul and a body. Humans are developing spirits via our material existence on earth in similar manner to how we are physically made in the womb. So we grow spiritually on earth before death to be able ot use our spiritual faculties as best as possible after death, just as we grow physically as much as possible before birth to use our physical bodies after death. We then reach our fullest spiritual potential after death as we then continue our journey to reunion with our creator.
- Fall- Mankind did not undergo fall type of event but is continually needing to progress and move toward perfection and ones own sin is what moves him away from that perfection.
- Heaven- Not a physical place but instead a symbolic representation of how you are growing spiritually. One does not ‘arrive’ at heaven but reaches a heavenly type of being and is either maintaining that state moving into more perfection or away from it.
- Sin- Mankind is basically good. Humankind is like a mirror that is turned away from the source of light which is God. Humankind can make choices that either help or hinder their spirituality and those things that hinder your growth are sin.
- Salvation- There is no real doctrine of Salvation in The Baha’I faith. For Baha’i’s the goal of life is to recognize the most recent manifestations of God, and to follow God and his plan for bringing the betterment of the world. Suffering in the world occurse because of prejudice whether racial, religious, or patriotic. Moving toward than in understanding that mankind is one and mankind acting as such will relieve the suffering of the world and bring the most progress to individual souls to. . . .?
- Creation- Everything evolved in stages through a designed and guided process by God.
- Hell- Not a physical place but a symbolic representation of us moving away from perfection.
- Unique Central Theology:
- Progressive Revelation: The Baha’I Faith teaches that there is only one religion that has evolved through time. By this view, each religion has simply been a new chapter of singular book which is The Baha’I Faith and each chapter was given for a specific time in history. The most recent then of those chapters is was revealed by the latest messengers of God the Bab and Baha’Ullah.
BEARDED DISCIPLE 